


How To: Fall Out of Love With Your Best Friend

by castiel_is_my_guardian_A113



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Hurt/Comfort, Jock Dean Winchester, M/M, Nerd Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 06:56:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5995903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/castiel_is_my_guardian_A113/pseuds/castiel_is_my_guardian_A113
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A prompt given to me by Knightfrog1248. Cas has a problem. He's fallen in love with his best friend, star of the football team, Dean Winchester! He decides to turn to Google to help him out of the sticky situation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How To: Fall Out of Love With Your Best Friend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Knightfrog1248](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Knightfrog1248/gifts).



Castiel Novak: School nerd, most hated person in high school. His best friend? Dean Winchester, the star quarterback of his school’s football team. They had been unlikely friends ever since anybody that went to Johnsonville High could remember. The only issue Castiel now had with this was that his feelings grew to something more than a friendship. When this started, he had no idea. But it was happening, and Cas was nervous. The time they spent hanging out after school together had started meaning so much more to Cas, and he found himself lying awake at night thinking about Dean’s green eyes, his numerous freckles, and his sandy blonde hair. It was 3:37a.m., and Cas was still awake, his eyes staring at his ceiling and his mind once again fantasizing about something he could never have. He finally threw his fists down on the bed in frustration and grabbed his phone, squinting at the sudden brightness. He couldn’t possibly be the first one to deal with such an issue, right? He opened his browser and decided to do some googling. “How to fall out of love with your best friend,” he said to himself, tapping the link to a wikihow page. “Step one…” he read. “‘Stay away from your best friend for a while’,” Cas bit his bottom lip, _‘that’s gonna be hard,’_ he thought. “Step two… ‘ensure that your feelings are valid’.” Cas thought for a moment. All those nights he had spent… the certain dreams… _‘yup, definitely valid.’_ “Step three… ‘accept the pain’... guess I’ll have to eventually,” he sighed. He couldn’t deny that Dean not picking up on his subtle hints had hurt a bit. “‘Tell yourself that it isn’t your fault’... ‘avoid forgetting them completely’... ‘practice self love’... ‘return to the friendship’... ‘remind yourself that the feelings are not fact’.” he took a deep breath and ran a hand over his face. But they were fact… he just couldn’t tell the truth. “‘Date casually’?” he smiled a bit. “‘Send kindness’... ‘ensure you both want to maintain the friendship’... ‘spend time in groups’... ‘become content with the relationship as it stands’.” Cas couldn’t become content with not having his crush love him back. How could he? But for the sake of their friendship, he’d give it a shot. He planned to try the steps out tomorrow as he put his phone back on the table and finally fell asleep. 

 

Step One: ‘Stay away from your best friend for a while’.  
Cas had avoided Dean all day, which was harder than he thought, seeing as they shared most of the same classes. He never realized how much time he and Dean had actually spent together during the day, and he was definitely feeling the sudden withdrawal. Another issue that hadn’t occurred to Cas was that he always sat at Dean’s table during lunch. This time, however, he ate at one of the back tables, which resulted in having his face smashed into his lunch tray by the school’s biggest prick. “Where’s your boyfriend, fag?” he laughed as Cas tried to fix his broken glasses. The left lense was cracked. He sighed and left the lunchroom.

 

Step Two: ‘Ensure that your feelings are valid’.  
Cas spent his time showering after gym thinking about whether this entire issue was just a phase or not. He couldn’t see himself just moving on from this, and he usually wasn’t one to develop obsessions. He was sure that he truly loved Dean, but this may just be the stress of school wigging him out. He turned off the water and grabbed his towel, drying off and changing. He went to his locker to get his bag, but he found that someone had scribbled the word: “Faggot” onto it with a black sharpie. He rolled his eyes and sighed, slamming it shut as he walked past the group of laughing upperclassmen. 

 

Step Three: ‘Accept the pain’.  
Cas was accepting the pain alright. Three days without Dean’s company, and what’s worse, three days of getting beat by upperclassmen. Be it in the locker room, cafeteria, or halls, he’d been accepting the pain alright. Right down to his now broken spare pair of glasses. Blind, lonely, and in pain. Step three seemed to be going quite smoothly. 

 

Step Four: ‘Tell yourself that it isn’t your fault’.  
But it was his fault. Dean hadn’t done anything to him. Dean didn’t make Cas develope feelings, it just happened. “Why is this so hard?” he sighed as he walked home with Charlie. He had jumped ahead a few steps to ‘spending time with a group of friends’. Well, he didn’t want Dean to see him in such a state, and Charlie was his only other friend.  
“I don’t know why you’re doing this to yourself, Cas. Why don’t you just tell him how you feel?”

 

“And risk getting him get kicked off the team for being thought of as a queer? No thanks.” Cas ran a hand through his hair and bit his bottom lip. Charlie shook her head and sighed, waving goodbye as she walked up the steps to her house. Cas walked up the steps to his own house and took a deep breath. This wasn’t going as planned. Not at all.

 

The steps were now blurring together for Cas. His head ached almost as much as his body. The beatings were starting to get more severe, and the injuries harder to hide. He tried to finish the rest of the steps, but he hated himself. He hated how he had feelings for Dean, he hated how he was always getting beaten at school, and he hated that he had to deal with it almost every day. There was no way he was gonna go back to hanging out with Dean. He couldn’t let Dean see him hurt. And of course he couldn’t ‘remind himself that the feelings aren’t fact’, because they were. He had cried himself to sleep numerous times over this. He loved Dean Winchester, and there was nothing he could do about it. Cas was close to drifting off after his session of tears that night when his phone buzzed. It was a text from Dean. 

 

It read: _‘Hey Cas, are you ok, buddy? I haven’t seen you in almost a month… Charlie said I should check up on you. What’s going on?’_

 

Cas sighed, trying to think of a reply. He finally settled on ‘sending kindness’ to him. 

 

_‘I’m fine, Dean :) Just been studying hard, you know? Good luck on your game this friday.’_

 

His phone buzzed again. 

 

_‘You had me worried for a bit. Glad you’re all good! :). And thanks man! Hope I see you there!’_

 

At least Dean bought it. Cas assumed that meant he was still friends with him in the very least, which was comforting. So comforting, in fact, that he had the courage to send Dean another text. 

 

_‘Yeah, of course I’m going! Maybe we can go get some fries after, I’ll buy.’_ Date casually: check. Cas smiled a bit and put his phone down, closing his eyes and falling back asleep. 

 

Friday.  
Cas waved at Dean as he walked past him to go to the locker room. Dean smiled and waved back, his face dripping with sweat from the game. Cas watched as Dean went into the locker room to shower and get changed back into his clothes. He was oblivious to the upperclassmen that were lingering behind him, watching as Cas walked into the hall. He waited for Dean to finish up before joining him for the ‘casual date’. “Just give me a sec to grab my bag, ok?” Cas asked, smiling as he jogged towards his locker. When he got there, he felt a massive hand grab him by his shirt collar and yank him off the floor. Cas yelped and kicked his feet, gasping for air. 

 

“Keep your mouth shut, faggot,” one of the upperclassmen grit, slamming him into the locker. The second slam sent bright flashing lights into Cas’s vision. 

 

“Let me go-” he choked out, trying to call for Dean. His voice was barely there, and his face was a bright shade of purple. 

 

The boys laughed. One of them grabbed his backpack and threw it down the hall, while another pinned Cas down to the floor. “Dean Winchester isn’t a fuckin’ fag, got it? We don’t have queers on our team! Whad’ya say, boys? Should we beat the gay out of him?” That earned a chorus of whoops and hoorahs. Cas squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the worst. The leader punched Cas in the jaw, making him bite his lip in the process. He had expected this to happen. He knew that the day had gone by too easily. What he didn’t expect was to hear Dean calling his name, running down the hall and practically throwing the ring leader off of him. Cas sat up and wiped the blood from his lip, trying to find his glasses as Dean dealt with the group. He hadn’t heard a majority of what was said due to the ringing in his ears, but Cas did hear Dean say one thing for sure. 

 

“Then I’m not on the fucking team anymore! I don’t care! But you don’t touch him… understand? Or I’ll kick all of your asses!” One menacing step towards them was all it took to send the group rushing down the hall to get away from the scene. Cas felt a gentle hand brush against his cheek and he looked up, watching as Dean unbent Cas’s glasses and placed them on his face. He helped Cas stand up and walk to the bathroom to clean up. “Are you ok?”

 

“I… I’m fine…” he said quietly, hot tears streaming down his cheeks. 

 

Dean sighed. “Cas… have they been torturing you all week?” Castiel nodded weakly, causing anger to spark in Dean’s chest. “Why didn’t you tell me? Have you been avoiding me?”

 

Cas’s bottom lip quivered. He broke down into a weeping mess and confessed everything to Dean, right down to his crush on him. Dean gently lifted him onto the counter and wiped his tears away, kissing his lips softly. Cas melted into him and wrapped his bruised arms around Dean’s neck. “I’m s-sorry… I got you kicked off the f-football team…” Dean shushed him and kissed his temple. 

 

“Don’t… it’s ok, Cas, I really don’t care. I care about your safety more than some stupid sport.” Dean said softly. “ And I knew, by the way. The feeling is mutual. ”He smiled and kissed Cas again.

 

Cas smiled into the kiss. _'Fall out of Love With Your Best Friend? Check.'_


End file.
